Agendas: The Most Underutilized Tool for Better Meetings (Facilitation Friday #21)
Your meeting and agenda design should demonstrate to participants that the meeting will be a good use of their time and involvement and make it easier for them to contribute meaningfully.
“No agenda. No attenda.”
Leave it to Dan Pink, one of my favorite authors, to coin such a catchy and meaningful phrase about the potential importance of meeting agendas.
Full disclosure: I received compensation for collaborating with Dan to create some of the activities and exercises in his book, A Whole New Mind, but I was a fan long before that happened.
Like Dan, I’m unlikely to attend agenda-less meetings. How can I know it will be a wise investment of my time? How can I prepare if I don’t know what will be discussed or decided?
But receiving a bullet-point list of topics for an agenda is the minimum participants should expect. We can do better.
Redefining success for the meeting agenda
When was the last time you received a meeting agenda that increased your enthusiasm for attending and really helped you prepare to contribute? Go ahead. Think about it. I’ll wait lol.
When asked this question in my facilitation workshops, people generally respond that they rarely receive such agendas.
Let’s change that. Let’s commit to creating meeting agendas that:
show attending the meeting matters
demonstrate respect for attendees’ time
help prepare participants to contribute meaningfully
are shared in a timely and accessible manner
Effective meeting agendas are more than just lists
Meeting agendas that just list reports and topics without any additional information aren’t particularly helpful to participants or for ensuring a successful gathering.
Generating such a list, however, can be a good start for the meeting design. Here is my checklist of what to next identify for each item:
The intended outcome (decision, idea generation, recommendation, et al)
Best format to achieve outcome and the likely time required
Key facts and relevant insights related to the desired outcome
A few questions to stimulate advance thinking
Links to pre-work or any additional background information
Similar in spirit is this straightforward approach Ava Butler outlines in her book Mission Critical Meetings.
Refining your meeting and agenda design
With this additional information, your initial list of agenda topics is now a more useful draft meeting design. Upon reviewing this more expansive draft it is not unusual to discover any or all of the following:
Items that are strictly information sharing and require little to no discussion. In some groups these items are added to a “paper agenda.” Participants are tasked to read that information with the understanding it will not be discussed (or only briefly).
One or more important issues or questions that will need longer blocks of time and attention and should be appropriately prioritized and positioned in the agenda.
What pre-work is necessary to achieve the meeting’s outcomes. You can then determine how to schedule and make it easier for participants to complete such work.
Some lower priority items that can be addressed at a different time or meeting, if needed.
Not every attendee needs to be present for every agenda item. It is worth exploring if a meeting’s agenda can allow some participants to attend only for the items most relevant to them.
With these new insights, you can now refresh your draft meeting design and create the final agenda. This might include moving some items in the initial draft to a “paper agenda” or reserving them for a future gathering; changing the flow of topics to better maximize individuals’ schedules; or sequencing prioritized items to ensure they receive the required attention.
Think like a graphic designer when developing the look and layout of your agenda. How might you use typefaces, colors, and graphic elements to guide participants’ attention and focus? Would a brief video or audio introduction to the meeting’s outcomes and agenda be helpful? Does your agenda need to be mobile-friendly? Accommodate low-vision participants? What other accessibility considerations should factor into your agenda design?
Finally, make sure the agenda is distributed in a timely manner. Timeliness considerations include: the meeting’s outcome; length of gathering; the participants’ expectations, schedules, and preferences; and the amount of pre-work involved. In general I find two weeks in advance to be a good sweet spot for most meetings, but definitely no later than one week prior.
Gather input to get better
Designing better meetings and agendas requires getting relevant input from actual participants about the experience. Whenever possible, I gather feedback after a meeting by asking at least these two questions:
What about the meeting was most effective for you and why?
What one thing would have made this meeting an even better investment of your time and/or made it even easier for you to contribute your best thinking?
Bottom Line
Meeting agendas may be the most powerful underutilized tool to help facilitate better discussions, decisions, and results. Your meeting and agenda design should demonstrate to participants that the meeting will be a good use of their time and involvement and make it easier for them to contribute meaningfully.
Getting in Action
Think of meetings you attend or facilitate. In addition to the ideas in this essay, how else might their agendas be enhanced to accelerate better discussions, decisions, and results?
Examine an agenda for a future or recent meeting through the lens and mindset of a graphic designer. How might it visually be improved to better engage participants’ attention and focus?
Identify on additional evaluation question you might pose to gather actionable feedback for improving future meeting agendas.
© Facilitate Better and Jeffrey Cufaude. All rights reserved.
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